DR. FREDA SCOTT GILES on Glenda Dickerson
*1966 BFA Howard University
MA Speech and Theatre Arts, Adelphi University
Director
1971 Wine in the Wilderness (Alice Childress)televised, Emmy Award nomination
1972: “For My People” WTOP TV, Washington, D.C. (Peabody Award)
1973-1976 Head of Drama Dept., Duke Ellington High School for Performing Arts, Washington, D.C.
Other academic appointments: Fordham University; Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University; Head, Dept. of Drama and Dance, Spelman College, Atlanta, GA; Center of World Performance (head), University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Creator/Director
1970 The Unfinished Song
1972 Jesus Christ Lawd Today
1977 Magic and Lions (poetry by Ernestine Jackson)
1978 Owen’s Song
Director
1980 Reggae (Galt MacDermot ) Broadway
1981 NO (poetry and stories by Alexis DeVeaux)
Creator/Director
1984 Tar Baby, a paradigm for our time
1988 Eel Catching in Setauket
1992 Wellwater: Wishes and Words, a Living Portrait of Newark’s People
1992 Ana Bel’s Brush: A Live Oak Drama
1992 Glenda Dickerson is Spreading Lies: a Space Shuttle for Black Women
1992 co-author with Breena Clarke, Re/Membering Aunt Jemima: A Menstrual Show
1995 Zora and Lorraine and Their Signifyin Tongues
1996 Folksay: A Living Exhibit (aka Talkstory of Style ad Substance; a site –specific historical work performed during the Atlanta zolympics
2000-2006: Transforming Through Performing Project at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
2001 Kitchen Prayers: a Performance Dialog on 911 and Global Loss
2003 Identities on Trial: A Kitchen Protest Prayer
2004 Sapphire’s New Shoe: the Kitchen Table Summit
2006 DVD: What’s Cookin in the Kitchen? A Planetary Portrait, 9/11/01-9/11/04
2005 (co-author with Lynda Gravatt) Barbara Jordan: Texas Treasure (Alley Theatre, Houston, TX)
“Glenda Dickerson’s Nu Shoe: Combining feminist discourse/pedagogy/theatre in Contemporary African American Women Playwrghts, A Casebook, edited by Philip C. Kolin (New York: Routeledge, 2007, pp 132-149)): – Dr. Freda Scott Giles
“[Glenda] Dickerson is unwavering in her determination to cast the creative imaginations and histories of Black women as reflective of the universal experience of humanity, thus giving voice to those who are silenced by sexism and racism while deconstructing and demolishing objectification, as formed through stereotypes of African American women. She is persistent in insisting that the political and social realities of woman of color be foregrounded on a resonant plane of myth and imagery.” (134)
Dr. Giles also wrote an article on Glenda and Pearl Cleage for a journal called “The Womanist.”
Freda Scott Giles
General Sandy Beaver Teaching Professor
Associate Professor of Theatre and African American Studies
Associate Director, Institute for African American Studies
Fine Arts Building
University of Georgia
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